In the PR industry, this is called "mediagenic research" and it's been around for decades. The idea is that if you want earned media coverage (what people in m

In the PR industry, this is called "mediagenic research" and it's been around for decades. The idea is that if you want earned media coverage (what people in marketing/communications call the news), you need to have a story. For times when you don't have a great story, finding some interesting data gives you an excuse to make one up. Part of the reason it's successful is that people are genuinely interested in it, and will read the articles. They don't particularly care if the methodology used to determine which city has the best sex, or which presidential candidate would perform best in an alien invasion (both real examples) is sound. They just like the story. Before stories were going viral on the internet, marketers did the same thing through local newspapers and radio. That's why so many studies rank cities or metro areas - because local papers want to report a local story. Most of this is pretty harmless. Nobody is making public policy decisions based on the data, the people reading it think it's funny or interesting, and it gives time-starved media companies simple content to push out.